


Background Galactis

by Auroch- (Auroch)



Series: Vulkanite Heresy [4]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen, Worldbuilding™
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:54:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Auroch/pseuds/Auroch-
Summary: Maps, organization, and history of the broader setting
Series: Vulkanite Heresy [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2096220





	1. Segmenta of the Imperium

## Segmentum Solar

### Great Crusade era

Smallest of the Segmenta, it comprised Terra and its hinterland; the Sol System sat at its heart and the other four were arrayed around it.

**Legiones Astartes based in this Segmentum**

Nominally, the Luna Wolves, from Horus's home world of Cthonia

Mars, headquarters of the Mechanicum, was Segmentum Fortress and ranked as equivalent or higher importance as the Legion homeworlds.

### Reconquest era

From Terra toward the east. After the Custodianship, the western border of the Segmentum drew very close to Sector Solar, and the eastern border moved up against the impenetrable galactic core.

Segmentum Fortress: Now the shipyards of Evraad, though unlike other Segmentum Fortresses its organizational significance is almost purely limited to military coordination; its Segmentum Fleet, while large, is smaller than the Fleet of Mars which has primary responsibility for defending Sol, the Administratum Master of Segmentum Solar is based on Luna, and little other power rests on Evraad.

**Notable features**

_Prospero_ , home world of Magnus though now a Dead World, sits within Segmentum Solar

_Cthonia_ , home world of Horus and Saint Uruk, still sits in Segmentum Solar. It is primarily significant as the birthplace of the Church of the Martyr and therefore one of the foremost worlds of the Imperial Faith. This strand, founded by Saint Uruk, worshipped both the Emperor and the fallen primarchs, Horus first among them. This was a minor church outside its regional strongholds around Cthonia, Prospero, Inwit, and Olympia, but was elevated in importance during Valdor's Founding of Faith.

## Segmentum Obscurus

### Great Crusade era

Segmentum Obscurus sat to the galactic north of Solar, from Chinchare in the west to Valhalla in the east.

Segmentum Fortress: Forge World Cypra Mundi

**Legiones Astartes based in this Segmentum**

Dark Angels from Lion El'Jonson's homeworld of Caliban, just south of the Halo Stars and the Rangda.

Space Wolves from Leman Russ's homeworld of Fenris, on the eastern fringe of the segmentum.

### Reconquest era

After the segmental reorganization, the western border moved east to the Cypra Mundi system, and its _de jure_ eastern border to slightly west of Baal. However, its eastern border with Segmentum Nihilus is the most heavily contested space in the galaxy, so the _de facto_ border is constantly shifting. However, it rarely moves much further west than Valhalla or closer to the Eye of Terror than Sable.

Segmentum Fortress: Forge World Lucius, perpetual strong point of the battlefront opposing the Eye of Terror

**Notable features**

_The Storm of Wrath_ : A recurring severe Warp Storm in the neighborhood of the Askellon Sector. It lasts for a decade or more, then fades before reappearing anywhere from twenty to two hundred years later, always in the same general vicinity but rarely the same subsector; sometimes it has moved the breadth of two whole sectors.

_Holscht_ , Fortress World, Shrine World, and the Segmentum headquarters of the Imperial Faith. It is dominated by the Cult Angelis Umbrorum and home to the closest thing that cult has to non-astartes leadership.

_Caliban_ , left infested by Chaos after the actions of the Space Wolves, and left a Dead World and highly geologically unstable after the sanction of Exterminatus was levied on the remains, still sits in the Segmentum and is monitored by a task force of the Last and First for the potential that it could be used for sorcerous ritual to attack the legion.

## Segmentum Pacificus

### Great Crusade era

Second-smallest and least-populous segmentum, it started at the western edge of Segmentum Solar between Hydraphur in the north and Gehenna in the south, and stretched west out to the edges of the Astronomican's light.

Segmentum Fortress: Forge World Hydraphur

**Legiones Astartes based in this Segmentum**

Initially, the Night Lords, from Night Haunter's home world of Nostramo, in the far southwest of the segmentum. They later became fleet-based, as directed by the primarch at the same time as he resumed use of the name Konrad Curze.

The Hydra had an unusually strong presence in this Segmentum.

### Reconquest era

The eastern border moved inward and now encompasses the Forge Worlds of Voss, Phaeton, and Graia. The northern border passes slightly west of Forge World Cypra Mundi, then east of Hellion and Opuscalus Noctis.

Segmentum Fortress: Still Forge World Hydraphur (now more centrally located)

**Notable features**

_Nuceria_ , home world of the primarch who was known as The Fettered, sits in the far northwest of the segmentum.

_Seraphina_ , Cemetery World and Segmentum headquarters of the Imperial Faith

## Segmentum Tempestus

### Great Crusade era

It sat south of Segmentum Solar, starting from the Taras Division and stretching past Tallarn to Antagonis and the west edge of the Hungering Gyre. In the west, its border passed near Krieg and Chiros.

Segmentum Fortress: Bakka

**Legiones Astartes based in this Segmentum**

Raven Guard from Corvus Corax's home world of Deliverance

Before Rogal Dorn was named Praetorian of Terra, the Imperial Fists were based on Inwit

The Death Guard, from Mortarion's home world of Barbarus

After Perturabo was named Vigilus Marchensis, the Iron Sages, from the Iron Line

### Reconquest era

The western border now passes due south near Graia, with Solstice one of the westernmost systems. To the east, the nominal border passes southwest from Olympia, east of Chogoris and the former location of Nocturne, leaving the galaxy just east of the Hungering Gyre. The practical border is the Iron Line, which has its northern terminus at the Maelstrom and, like the western border, heads nearly straight south, passing between Chemos and Chogoris and very near the former location of Nocturne before ending at the west side of the Gyre.

Segmentum Fortress: Still Bakka (now more centrally located)

**Notable features**

_Chemos_ , former home of Fulgrim and his Emperor's Children, now a Dead World, sits in the north of Tempestus

_Ophelia_ , Shrine World and at times galactic headquarters of the Faith, lies in the Phobian system in Segmentum Tempestus. It is named for Saint Ophelia, founder of the Mysteries of the Undying Emperor, a church which drew heavily from voidgoers and the ruling class in the days before the Founding of Faith incorporated it into the Imperial Faith.

_Lycaeus_ , briefly known as Deliverance, and its primary Kiavahr, home to the Ravenspire and the Homewing order of the Raven Guard 

## Ultima Segmentum

### Great Crusade era

The Ultima Segmentum began at the eastern edge of Segmentum Solar, on an arc passing near Elysia, Prospero, and Nikea, before extending outwards and east past the galactic core to Ultramar in the southeast and the Ghoul Stars in the northeast. It was abolished during the Custodianship, with the western half being divided into its neighboring segmenta and the eastern half redesignated _Segmentum Nihilus_ , i.e. outside Imperial control.

Segmentum Fortress: Kar Duniash

**Legiones Astartes based in this Segmentum**

The Reforged, from Ferrus Manus's home world of Medusa

The Blood Angels, from Sanguinius's home world of Baal

The Chained Hounds, from their muster world of Bodt, just coreward of Chondax

The Iron Sages, from Perturabo's home world of Olympia, until he was given the duty of Vigilus Marchensis.

The Thousand Sons, from Magnus's home world of Prospero

The Emperor's Children, from Fulgrim's home world of Chemos

The White Scars, from Jaghatai Khan's home world of Chogoris, a.k.a. Mundus Planus

The Word Bearers, from Lorgar's home world of Colchis

The Salamanders, from Vulkan's home world of Nocturne

The Ultramarines, from Roboute Guilliman's home polity of Ultramar

## Segmentum Nihilus

### Reconquest era

Segmentum Nihilus is practically defined as the wide band to the galactic east of the core, from Bale, Neverlight, and the Evermaw north through the Thirteen Realms and the Dominion of Storms to Honourum, Angelis, and the Eye of Terror. The technical definition is defined in relation to a certain band of angles measured from the galactic core, but it is effectively the same. It is the area which it is infeasible to protect from the depredations of the forces of Chaos, where any attempt to hold ground mandates a two-front war and so it can only be contested back and forth.

Segmentum Fortress: _The Phalanx_ , headquarters of the Obsidian Fists, who have fought a perpetual crusade in Segmentum Nihilus since their founding.

**Notable features**

_The Eye of Terror_ , to the galactic northeast of Baal at a radius from the core about two and a half times that of Baal. The largest Warp Rift in the galaxy and second-largest Warp Storm, it predates the Great Crusade and now is home to three full traitor legions and portions of three more.

_The Evermaw_ , created as the lasting effect of the Ruinstorm ritual which engulfed Ultramar in the largest Warp Storm ever seen. It shrank somewhat in the decades after the Heresy War and created a true Warp Rift at its heart, to which the Ultramarines and Word Bearers retreated after their defeat; this smaller but more intense version was named the Evermaw by the astartes of the Iron Line, upon realizing it was not going to dissipate further. Since a century after its shrinking began, however, both storm and rift have been growing, slowly but steadily; they passed the peak extent of the Ruinstorm in M35 and seem to be adding a roughly constant amount of volume per century.

_The Signus Accord_ : A bastion of hope between hells, the Signus Accord is a cross-species alliance, principally between the T'au and the exiled Forge World of Triplex Phall. Far beyond the ability of the Imperium to protect them or even support them, Triplex Phall, already self-sufficient by necessity, sought to build a more durable, secure region of space which could withstand raids without intervention by the Obsidian Fists or other crusading astartes orders. The Warp-resistant T'au, a young but rapidly-developing race, made contact with them in late M33, having achieved spaceflight in the preceding two centuries and slowly expanding outward from their home world near Konig Secundus. They sought to convert the Mechanicum magoi to their philosophy of the Greater Good, but their devotion to the Omnissiah, though very much heterodox by this time, remained far too strong. They did, however, share knowledge, with both sides receiving technical knowledge and Triplex freely sharing what they knew of Chaos, the dangers of the galaxy, and particularly the heretic astartes raiders. Sobered T'au sought and found corroboration of their claims, and their Ethereals made the decision to make solid alliances even with those who declined to join the Greater Good, a principle they named "Nont'shas Ko'vash", literally "Shadow-Time's Worthy Cause" but usually translated into Low Gothic as "the Desperate Times Principle". They, their client races, and Triplex Phall signed an accord (brokered by the living-stone humanoids called variously the Durazi and the Demiurg) to come to each other's aid, share technology as much as was feasible, and pool information and agents in the investigation and expunging of Chaos taint from their worlds. This accord with xenos is frowned on by many of the loyal astartes who operate in Segmentum Nihilus, but they recognize that Triplex Phall would have fallen long ago without it, so other than assisting with the smuggling of Inquisitives and Imperial Faith priests onto the human-peopled worlds of the Signus Accord, they have left the T'au and their small empire alone.


	2. History before the Great Crusade

ca. **M{-5000}** : Old One civilization spreads across the galaxy through mastery of the (calm) Warp. They spread many cunningly-designed species, most of which quickly develop into sapients or near-sapients.

ca. **M{-4000}** : Necrontyr civilization develops space travel, meets the Old Ones, and tries to bargain for secrets of immortality or life extension. They are refused, and declare eternal vengeance against them. This informal declaration of war is ignored, as the Necrontyr cannot traverse the stars quickly enough to bother the Old Ones.

ca. **M{-3,994}** : After several millennia of fruitless research into immortality, contact is made with one of the "Seh Tan" star-spirits, and living metal bodies for them devised. The Seh Tan (also written C'Tan) pledge their support for the Necrontyr in war against the Old Ones. The C'Tan called the Messenger delivers the ultimatum of the Silent King: Share the secrets of immortality with the Necrontyr or face total war against all the might the Necrontyr and C'Tan can muster. Despite the obvious power of the C'Tan, the Old Ones again refuse, and rally their many creations to a war footing. With hindsight, this was probably intentional on the part of the Messenger, who will later be known as the Deceiver.

ca. **M{-3990}** : Despite their superior mobility and the might of half the planets in the galaxy, the Old Ones and their client species are unable to damage the C'Tan enough to win; they merely lose slowly. They create new warrior species, which fare somewhat better, and take the field in person, though they hold back substantially to minimize the danger to their persons. This produces a stalemate. The C'Tan develop a taste for the eating of souls, a much more flavorful feast than the energy of stars.

ca. **M{-3990}** : The Old One responsible for work on primate species of the third planet from a certain sun, a green, watery world which has a very large moon, discontinues their prior projects to work on new warrior races which are needed to fight the C'Tan. This abandoned species slowly develops on its own, and in a few million years will become somewhat significant.

ca. **M{-3985}** : With the Old Ones showing no signs of giving in and the Necrontyr unable to claim the worlds the C'Tan have conquered due to the limits of their mortal frames, they become frustrated. The Messenger and the Dragon describe "re-forges", great artifices which will replace the feeble flesh bodies of the Necrontyr with living metal bodies like those of the C'Tan, powerful and ageless. Completing construction of these forges will take centuries, but the Necrontyr eagerly begin it anyway, suspending their near-dead in stasis and ceasing to send out generation ships in anticipation of overtaking them in superluminal craft carrying their new metal bodies.

ca. **M{-3984}** : The Messenger flies through the galaxy destroying every Necrontyr generation ship it can find from their records, which it accesses under the pretense of preparing reforges for their arrival. It is fully aware that the Necrontyr aboard them will not be happy to see what the reforges have wrought on their kin, and wants to prevent internal dissent from those who will still be capable of it.

ca. **M{-3983}** : The reforges are complete and every Necrontyr world sends all its people through them. The C'Tan feast on the souls shed in the process. Individuality is utterly lost, but the C'Tan and their new "tools" are noew decisively winning the War in Heaven.

ca. **M{-3950}** : The Old Ones have observed that C'Tan have little resistance against the Warp, and now that they are in serious danger, take steps to use that vulnerability. They create a new crop of Warp-attuned warrior species, including the Slanni, who have Warp-fortified bodies which can withstand most of the C'Tan's attacks, and the Eldar, who are all gifted psykers and can act as the speartip to kill cornered C'Tan.

ca. **M{-3948}** : The gods of the Eldar coalesce as self-aware beings within the Warp. They can emerge to do single combat with the C'Tan on equal terms, and reform a few centuries after their death. However, the Warp is growing more turbulent from the many strong psykers which now people the galaxy. The Old Ones have ceased to hold back in their fights, and have brought the War in Heaven back to stalemate.

ca. **M{-3940}** : The Warp grows more tumultuous, and the Old Ones less able to master it. They risk losing the war, and so create a new crop of species. The Krork are a brutal hammer of a warrior race, nearly impossible to eradicate from a world, with a shared psychic gestalt which insulates them from the new predators of the Warp. The Minn can make bubbles orthogonal to the Warp, and are exceedingly good spies and infiltrators, gathering intelligence on the C'Tan and their slaves and performing undetectable sabotage. These new Warp-active species aggravate the storms in the Warp, and it will never be peaceful again. But the C'Tan begin to again lose the war.

ca. **M{-3935}** : The few scattered Necrontyr generation ships which had escaped the notice of the 'Messenger' arrive at their destinations and are appalled at the metal revenants in their image that they find there. They attempt to make common cause with the Eldar but are rebuffed, though not actively attacked. They assemble histories of their people and how those histories came to an end, and rename the Messenger with the title 'Deceiver'. The name "Necrontyr" means "the eternal people", an aspiration rather than a description; in an ironic echo of this aspiration, they give the metal copies the name "Necron", literally "the eternal(s)".

ca. **M{-3934}** : As the C'Tan become hard pressed by the Old Ones' psychic warriors, the Necrontyr remnant and what allies they secured from the Necrons strike, using incredibly powerful weapons to shatter the C'Tan into many smaller shards, with the intention of binding them under the control of those Necrons who retained their minds. This is only partially successful; the C'Tan are greatly weakened, but still far too strong to bind. The C'Tan abandon the War in Heaven to retaliate against their traitorous servants.

ca. **M{-3930}** : In running battles between Necron Phaerons and their armies and sharded C'Tan, several C'Tan devour the bodies and minds of multiple Phaerons, and a smaller but significant number of Phaerons subdue shards and consume them instead. Phaerons are weak but have personalities nearly as strong as C'Tan, so where several of them coexist in a mind, they tend to become the dominant intellect controlling them even when they were initially devoured by a C'Tan. The mixtures of Necron and C'Tan become known as "Hemneb", "avatar-kings". Some have Necron components which were Crypteks; these and Hemneb whose C'Tan part is a shard of the Dragon are supremely technologically skilled and called Rekhneb, "avatar-scholars". Hemneb and Rekhneb almost all switch sides and fight for the Necrons against the C'Tan.

ca. **M{-3930}** : The forces of the Old Ones attempt to capitalize on the C'Tan's civil war, but are attacked from behind by a new opponent. The chaotic Warp has either awakened, created, or attracted an ambiguously-sapient race of Immaterial creature called the Krell Enslavers, which seized control of most Eldar and Slann, and many of the older warrior races like the Jokaero, and used them to breach the barriers of reality and gain material form. The surprise opening of a second front overwhelms the Old Ones, and the Enslavers's abilities within the stormy Warp now exceed those of the Old Ones. They are wiped out, as are the Slann and most of their warrior species.

ca. **M{-3929}** : The first record of daemonic entities dates from this period. They are weak by modern standards and have little ability to affect the Materium. Descriptions match the modern category of daemon known as "Furies".

ca. **M{-3925}** : The Eldar and Minn, hard-pressed by the Krell attacks, each successfully construct pockets where they can hide from the enslavers. Their numbers have been devastated and much knowledge lost, but they survive. At the same time, the C'Tan cut their losses and permanently abandon both civil and heavenly wars, disappearing to backwater corners of the galaxy to eat stars and subsapient creatures in peace. The Hemneb and Rekhneb are all mildly to severely insane, and fall to infighting, wiping out many of their worlds and fragmenting. They are, however, virtually immune to the Krell. The Necrontyr remnant, however, are not immune, and the last of them die at this time.

ca. **M{-3923}** : Szarekh the Silent King, Overphaeron of all Necrons and Hemnet of Zarhulash the Potentate, determines that though their wars are won, as long as the Krell infest the galaxy there is little to be gained from expansion, and no possibility of regaining bodies and souls. He exercises his command protocols to send all Necrons into long-term hibernation until such time as the galaxy has abundant flesh sapients resistant to the Krell, and the creations of the Old Ones are not powerful. Szarekh leaves some trusted Praetorians awake, with instructions to attempt to seed Warp resistance into near-sapients of the galaxy. Feeling responsible and guilty for the deaths of the War in Heaven and the loss of bodies to the reforges, Szarekh himself goes into self-imposed exile beyond the galaxy.

ca. **M{-3910}** : Krell infestation finally burns itself out. Necron Praetorians successfully seed the Pariah Gene in the species which will later become humanity.

ca. **M{-3800}** : Jokaero are the first sapients to recover from the Krell infestation. The Jokaero Empire begins, and expands to cover a large section of the galaxy. The Webway is probably constructed at this time.

ca. **M{-3440}** : Jokaero encounter several pockets of C'Tan Shards. Lesser War in Heaven begins.

ca. **M{-3437}** : Jokaero observe that the shards are becoming more powerful as they consume Jokaero worlds. They successfully subvert a number of Nightbringer shards to war against their fellows, but initiate desperate research plans to defeat them before they become as powerful as the old C'Tan.

ca. **M{-3435}** : Mighty superweapons destroy most of the C'Tan shards, but the most powerful withstand it. The research project determines that they are too powerful to sustain themselves on subsapients, but sapient minds and souls are making them more powerful. In a dangerous gambit, the Jokaero genetically engineer themselves to suppress their sapience while leaving most of their combat and invention skills intact. Artificial intelligences are left in place to reverse this when the threat of the C'Tan has passed.

ca. **M{-3430}** : The gambit succeeds, and the remaining shards expire from lack of nutrients. However, Necron Praetorians destroy the custodian AIs before they can recognize the victory and restore the Jokaero.

ca. **M{-3400}** : Eldar seers in their webway-like pockets detect the end of the Lesser War in Heaven, which they mistake for the end of the Greater War in Heaven. They emerge from seclusion and begin attempts to pick up the pieces of their wartime civilization.

ca. **M{-3350}** : The Eldar 'homeworlds' are settled and become the heart of the renewed Eldar civilization. Eldar 'Age of Legends' begins.

ca. **M{-3330}** : Second Krell War. Eldar society devastated.

ca. **M{-3225}** : Eldar win Second Krell War.

ca. **M{-3100}** : Eldar again expand to the stars.

ca. **M{-3195}** : Eldar fight the remaining Krorks for the first time.

ca. **M{-3190}** : Krork Quarantine begins. Krorks begin a slow weakening process due to lack of conflict.

ca. **M{-3180}** : Eldar fight coherent daemonic armies for the first time. Suppression of daemon cults leads to an increased importance of religion in their society.

ca. **M{-3170}** : Eldar Holy Wars. Many Eldar go into diaspora. Age of Legends ends, with only patchy records preserved from before this point.

ca. **M{-3160}** : Eldar-Hrud War begins. It will end with the shattering of both civilizations.

ca. **M{-3100}** : Eldar-Hrud War ended by this time. First record of the Saga of the Rhana Dandra. In what pieces of this ancient version remain, Phoenix Lords are mentioned specifically, but only by allegorical titles. The group is referred to as "the Brotherhood of Eternal Rising" and the member said to sound the call that draws them to the final battle is referred to as "First Father of Fire". Interestingly, preserved scraps also refer to a "Brother of Eternal Falling" returning to the Brotherhood unexpectedly, a portion with no equivalent in modern tellings of the saga.

ca. **M{-2800}** : Eldar society begins to recover. The homeworlds unify politically. The seeds of the great Eldar Empire are sown.

ca. **M{-2403}** : The first Dragon King of the Eldar is crowned. The Eldar Empire's calendar was counted from this date by M{-2000}.

ca. **M{-900}** : The Eldar automate all important tasks in their society. This leaves them following their diverse and scarily single-minded whims, without any needs to rein them in. This plants the seeds of their Fall.

ca. **M{-100}** : The Eldar Empire discovers, or possibly rediscovers, the Webway

ca. **M{-23}** : Generally considered the peak of the Empire, when their achievements in knowledge, technology, and art had developed to their greatest height and their decline had not yet begun in earnest

ca. **M{-11}** : First recorded "pleasure cult" in the Eldar Empire, where ordinary sensuality gave way to increasingly bizarre and sadistic indulgence. Unlike later cults, this did not involve murder, and their torture victims were consenting members of the cult.

ca. **M{-11}** : First recorded Exodite settlement, a planet where most technology was banned and what remained was integrated into the ecosystem, self-sustaining rather than built by Eldar hands.

 **M{-4}** : First human writing. Human history begins.

 **M03** : Humanity develops interplanetary spaceflight.

ca. **M05** : Most Exodite settlements are founded around this time. Pleasure cults are endemic to the home worlds, though still not at the extreme levels they will later reach. Trading fleets begin to take notice.

 **M08** : Humanity tests its first superluminal engine to disastrous results, as it is passing through the Warp unprotected. The failure is poorly understood and no second test is conducted; humanity relies on light-hugging generation ships for the next several millennia.

ca. **M11** : Large portions of the Eldar elite move to the Webway, forming many secret societies out of sight of law enforcement. These societies host the most extreme of the pleasure cults.

 **M11** : Human experts in genetic manipulation create the Men of Gold, who proceed to lead humanity forward in dramatic bounds. Sometimes considered the beginning of the Golden Age of Technology.

 **M12** : Humanity develops the Gellar field, making it safe to traverse the Warp; expansion increases dramatically. This is usually considered the beginning of the Golden Age of Technology, or by later observers the Dark Age of Technology.

 **M14** : Men of Stone created by the Men of Gold to assist them in governing across the increasingly large galactic holdings of humanity

 **M17** : Men of Stone supplant the Men of Gold as the primary driving force in human politics.

 **M18** : Men of Stone create the Men of Iron for similar reasons to their own creation by the Men of Gold.

ca. **400.M18** : The man who will later be called the Emperor launches a sublight journey to the world of Molech alongside a handful of other Perpetuals.

ca. **800.M18** : Foreshocks from the Birth of Slaanesh make the Warp increasingly tumultuous.

ca. **100 M19** : The perpetuals' pilgrimage reaches Molech. The Emperor enters a gate of unknown function and returns. The returning men and women use ordinary Warp-leaper ships to return to Terra and/or disperse.

ca. **600.M22** : Trading fleets of the Eldar recoil at the perversion on display in the home worlds and begin to follow the Exodites into self-imposed exile. Instability in the Warp leads them to fit all their trading vessels with powerful sublight engines in addition to the Webway gates and warp drives previously standard.

ca. **100.M23** : Commorragh's identity as a polity is established, and manipulation of the Webway's corridors secures its place as the center of the Webway, where all corridors lead.

ca. **M23** : Rebellion of the Men of Iron. Mass death across all of human space. All sources which consider the Age of Technology as a "Golden Age" place its end at this time; most sources which consider it a "Dark Age" place the end date later, when the Long Night begins.

ca. **900.M23** : Decadence and thrill-seeking of the Eldar Empire reaches its peak. A few scattered refugees come to their senses and flee aboard whatever Warp-capable voidcraft they can find.

 **000.M24** : Departure of the Masques; the Harlequin devotees of Cegorach universally find that mystical communion with Cegorach, used to guide them to places their art is most wanted or needed, is universally pointing them away from the homeworlds.

 **001.M24** : Fall of the Eldar. Birth of Slaanesh. Consumption of the Eldar gods, excepting Khaine, who is shattered, and Cegorach, who flees into the depths of the Webway. The Warp becomes engulfed in galaxy-wide storms of a severity not seen since the War in Heaven. This cuts off all human settlements from their neighbors, beginning the Long Night. (Also called the Age of Strife, or in the Imperial era the Old Night.) All sources which do not label the rebellion of the Men of Iron as the end of the Age of Technology place the age's end at this time.

ca. **490.M29** : The Emperor begins creation of the Golden Companions, later known as the Adeptus Custodes.

ca. **500.M29** : The Emperor's Unification of Terra begins

ca. **900.M29** : The Emperor and his gathered geneticists begin the Primarch Project

 **985.M29** : Production of astartes begins, using the mostly-completed genomes of the primarchs.

 **997.M29** : Primarch's uterine tanks stolen from under the Himalazian Mountains by the Chaos Gods. Production of astartes continues.

 **003.M30** : First combat deployment of astartes, a battalion of Legio I fighting in the Siege of Ababa, as half of a pincer strike with the other half being Thunder Warriors. Despite being substantially outnumbered by the Thunder Warrior contingent and facing equally secure fortifications, the Angels of Death use their superior senses and coordination to storm the battlements entirely, and by the time the Thunder Warriors established their first beachhead through the enemy line, the astartes had passed through the central palace and greeted their allies, telling them the battle was already won. Satisfied that his proof of concept has been demonstrated, the Emperor scales up the production of Legio I and begins production of the other nineteen legions.

 **025.M30** : The First Legion is deployed in numbers, at least fifty thousand strong, in fighting for the Greyzim hive cluster against Sudafrik's Deebrass Underlords; they secure the hive in six days. It is nearly fifty years before any other legion deploys at this scale, during which time the First sees this level of engagement roughly three times per year.

 **057.M30** : First recorded deployment of Legio XVII; a squad, in black power armor with ornate faceplates, advances under flag of parley to holdout regions of Terra, speaking for the Emperor and offering his ultimatum: submission or destruction. They carry out this duty numerous times throughout the last century of Unification; this earns them the cognomen Imperial Heralds.

 **224.M30** : Astartes Legio VII are deployed widely across Terra in the Unification Wars, taking a number of daunting fortresses and raising equally daunting ones to hold the ground. After taking the city of Roma and repelling a mighty counterattack a few short weeks later, they are awarded their first major battle honour and the cognomen "Rocks of Roma".

ca. **220.M30** : The Warp finally calms after the birth of Slaanesh, making safe interstellar travel possible for the first time in six millennia.

 **230.M30** : The Astronomican is completed.

 **231.M30** : Massacre at Gadaure, Ararat Purge. Unification of Terra ends.

 **225-245.M30** : Legio XII spends much of this period without assigned duties, but trains heavily and frequently requests to be assigned campaigns to carry out. After one of their rare deployments is carried out with speed, tenaciousness, and savage fury, the Emperor admiringly names them his War Hounds.

 **237.M30** : The last priest on Terra chooses to die with his church rather than give up his faith, despite a long and heated argument with the Emperor in person. First Pacification of Luna. Legio XVI receives the cognomen "Luna Wolves". Great Crusade begins.


	3. Timeline of the Great Crusade

### Early Deployments of the Astartes

 **003.M30** : First combat deployment of astartes, a battalion of Legio I fighting in the Siege of Ababa, as half of a pincer strike with the other half being Thunder Warriors. Despite being substantially outnumbered by the Thunder Warrior contingent and facing equally secure fortifications, the Angels of Death use their superior senses and coordination to storm the battlements entirely, and by the time the Thunder Warriors established their first beachhead through the enemy line, the astartes had passed through the central palace and greeted their allies, telling them the battle was already won. Satisfied that his proof of concept has been demonstrated, the Emperor scales up the production of Legio I and begins production of the other nineteen legions.

 **025.M30** : The First Legion is deployed in numbers, at least fifty thousand strong, in fighting for the Greyzim hive cluster against Sudafrik's Deebrass Underlords; they secure the hive in six days. It is nearly fifty years before any other legion deploys at this scale, during which time the First sees this level of engagement roughly three times per year.

 **057.M30** : First recorded deployment of Legio XVII; a squad, in black power armor with ornate faceplates, advances under flag of parley to holdout regions of Terra, speaking for the Emperor and offering his ultimatum: submission or destruction. They carry out this duty numerous times throughout the last century of Unification; this earns them the cognomen Imperial Heralds.

 **117.M30** : Legio XVIIII sees frequent use as scouts, artillery observers, assassins, and infiltrators against the most zealous holdouts against Unification. For this work, the Emperor refers to them as His "Hidden Hands", which becomes a secret cognomen for the legion, one which becomes publicly acknowledged after the Great Crusade begins.

 **224.M30** : Astartes Legio VII are deployed widely across Terra in the Unification Wars, taking a number of daunting fortresses and raising equally daunting ones to hold the ground. After taking the city of Roma and repelling a mighty counterattack a few short weeks later, they are awarded their first major battle honour and the cognomen "Rocks of Roma".

 **237.M30** : The last priest on Terra chooses to die with his church rather than give up his faith, despite a long, personal, heated argument with the (disguised) Emperor.

### The Great Crusade

 **237.M30** : The Great Crusade is officially launched with the First Pacification of Luna. Legio XVI distinguishes themselves in this battle, and receives the cognomen "Luna Wolves".

 **239.M30** : Sedna Campaign. Eight full legions attack the artificial planet of Sedna, in the Sol System, wiping out its xenos creators. Humanity, with the probable exception of the Emperor and Malcador and possible exception of the Ten Thousand, forgets it ever existed immediately following the completion of this campaign.

 **240.M30** : Emperor arrives on Mars. Signing of the Treaty of Olympus. Imperium becomes interplanetary.

 **241.M30** : Legio IIII defeats the War Witches of Venus and their Litho-Gholems; The Fourth gets first pick of the new equipment from Mars.

 **244.M30** : After nine months out of contact in the moons of Neptune, Legio VIIII reestablishes communications and declares Neptune compliant. Despite heavy losses, their numbers are as large as they were on deployment.

 **244.M30** : Legio V is divided into many "Pioneer Companies", each of which ranges well beyond the Imperium's boundaries seeking new worlds to point the Expeditionary Fleets to. These are informed of several things to particularly look for, including a description of primarchs.

 **245.M30** : Sol System fully brought to Compliance.

 **248.M30** : A Pioneer Company of Legio V discovers Cthonia and makes contact with a remarkable, larger-than-life warlord on that world who they identify as a probable primarch.

 **249.M30** : Emperor arrives on Cthonia and recovers Horus. Several companies of the Fifth Legion are in attendance in recognition for their discovery of the primarch. Horus thanks them personally and calls them 'Star Hunters', a name the Emperor makes their cognomen.

 **256.M30** : Legio X destroys the Krooked Klaw ork empire with "storm and anvil" tactics and receives the cognomen "Storm Walkers".

 **259.M30** : The III Legion's gene-seed reserves fail to arrive at the vaults on Luna and an artificial pathogen obliterates several gene-seed vaults on Terra. The Blight takes hold and devastates the legion's numbers. It will not be successfully combated until the recovery of Fulgrim. The legion's small size makes it exclusively reassigned to protection of important emissaries, often including the Emperor Himself.

 **267.M30** : Proximan Betrayal. Legio III sacrifice many of their lives to protect the Emperor from an assassination attempt by a Vortex bomb during Proxima's Compliance ceremony. They receive the right to wear the Aquila and the cognomen "Devotees".

 **272.M30** : Osiris Rebellion; Legio XIII, the War-Born, attempts to suppress a rebellion in the Osiris Cluster and discover an unknown xenos race controlling the minds of the populace. Legion Master Gren Vosotho and large portions of the legion are killed in the retreat.

 **274.M30** : The War-Born's new Legion Master, Marius Gage, returns to Osiris with the bulk of his legion and specialized reinforcements, but finds only dead worlds.

 **288.M30** : The first deployment of Legio VI, on Delsvaan, ends in a massacre of its capital, leading to a quick surrender. A Remembrancer remarks within the astartes' enhanced hearing that their charge looked as chaotic as most army's routs; the legion unexpectedly likes this description and takes "The Rout" as a nickname. After several similar deployments which cause the enemy to rout, the nickname is elevated to an official cognomen.

ca. **290.M30** : Legio IIII sees widespread use as determined, if unimaginative, soldiers, willing to take on inglorious campaigns with unmatched stubbornness and dedication. The few admiring commentators call the legion the "Workhorses", but their more common nickname is the "Corpse Grinders". The latter is officially forbidden and the former made their cognomen, but 'Corpse Grinders' remains by far the more common name.

 **291.M30** : The Emperor discovers Prospero and recovers Magnus. Magnus immediately joins the research into the flesh-change to attempt to save his sons.

 **295.M30** : After the fifth time Legio VIIII emerges from a bloody campaign having already replenished their ranks from the populace, Malcador the Sigilite gives them the cognomen "Revenants".

ca. **305.M30** : Legio XVIII completes a long string of 'police' actions, defending the Crusade's supply train from pirates and attacking Space Hulks and other incursions deep within the Imperium's borders. A grateful chartist captain described one of their offensives to his colleagues as "Dragons descending from the void, ripping through the ship's skins with fire and fury", and the story spread, leading the Chartists, and later the military, to call them the "Dragon Warriors".

 **310.M30** : Legio XVIIII is brought in to suppress a rebellion in the Paramar system after a first pacification by the War-Born proves temporary.

 **319.M30** : First recorded sighting of mysterious astartes of no recognizable marking or formation intervening in a theater where no astartes were assigned, appearing roughly simultaneously in many parts of the battlefront and vanishing as suddenly as they arrived. Reports of this 'Ghost Legion' continue for several centuries. Some historical commentators identify these reports with Legio XX, later called the Hydra.

 **327.M30** : The War Hounds are deployed against the Cerberus Insurrection, where they fight Thunder Warriors among the other prisoners of the Cerberus Penal Colony.

 **335.M30** : An Expeditionary Fleet makes contact with the great mobile fortress of the Phalanx. The Emperor gathers the Rocks of Roma and follows the Phalanx to its home world of Inwit, where He and they meet Rogal Dorn. Rogal honors their achievements and says that they will be, as they have been, "the hands of the Emperor, taking and holding worlds like His unbreakable fist". The Emperor approved, granting them the official name Imperial Fists and the right to bear the laurels of victory in their legion heraldry.

ca. 300-350.M30 Consolidation of Segmentum Solar

 **357.M30** : Emperor passes Nuceria, Angron/The Fettered not yet present

ca. **400.M30** : Primarch II recovered near Cypra Mundi

ca. **430.M30** : Crusade reaches Bodt, first substantial battle against the Rangda

 **437.M30** : Chemos, Fulgrim

 **440.M30** : Medusa, Ferrus Manus

 **440.M30** : Rangdan conflict escalates. A small force of Custodians stay in the area to prepare sentry stations around the Eye of Terror, but the Emperor and the main fleets cut short the eastward expansion to fight the Rangda. First Rangdan Campaign begins.

ca. **455.M30** : Emperor joins Expeditionary Fleets in the galactic south, searching for further primarchs.

ca. **460.M30** : First Rangdan Campaign reaches a stalemate. Scouring of life from worlds suspected of having unactivated Rangdan forces continues for another two decades along the stalemate line. This is later named the First Rangdan Xenocide.

 **461.M30** : Emperor passes Kiavahr(/Deliverance), Corax not yet present

 **471.M30** : Emperor passes Olympia, Perturabo not yet present

 **490.M30** : Barbarus, Mortarion

 **502.M30** : Nocturne, Vulkan

 **509.M30** : Chogoris, Jaghatai Khan

 **519.M30** : Compliance of Davin

 **519.M30** : Legiones Astartes begin to mass in Segmentum Obscurus for a second offensive against the Rangda

 **527.M30** : Emperor-headed Expeditionary Fleet ventures into the 'No-Mans Land' between the Imperium and the Rangda, searching for a primarch.

 **529.M30** : Caliban, Lion El'Johnson

 **530.M30** : Rangda retaliate against the incursion. Second Rangdan Campaign begins.

ca. **550.M30** : Emperor leaves the front. Breaking of Noctis Labyrinthus.

 **552.M30** : Vulkan reunited with his gene-sons, bows to them for their valiant sacrifices.

 **556.M30** : Rangda are broken as a cohesive fighting force. Second Rangdan Campaign transitions to Second Rangdan Xenocide, which continues to be costly.

ca. **570.M30** : Second Rangdan Xenocide ends, but the Imperium keeps a picket line running roughly Sarcosa-Caliban-Lucius-Chemos-Medusa in case of resurgent remnants

ca. **570.M30** : The Emperor and His Talons, alone, venture past Medusa to the Eye of Terror, surrounding it and laying the groundwork for fortifications. The largest fixed-position force of Sisters of Silence outside Sol is left in command, and the emplacements are manned primarily Mechanicum forces with some Imperial Army support, no astartes.

 **571.M30** : Fenris, Leman Russ

ca. **580.M30** : The Emperor , His Talons, and Russ join with an Expeditionary Fleet in the area and venture into the Ghoul Stars. Their goal is unknown, but the voyage lasts almost a decade and comes back with substantial casualties and no tangible achievements.

 **589.M30** : Baal, Sanguinius

 **595-610.M30** : Relighting of the Forges: The major Forge Worlds Triplex Phall, Tigrus, and Thrax, as well as several smaller Mechanicum worlds, are brought back into contact with Mars and join the Imperium. This is the last major wave of additions to the Omnissian Communion until the wave of new worlds settled during the Reconquest.

ca. **610.M30** : As Ultramar expands, outlandish rumors begin reach Macragge of a rabble-rousing priest on a world near Ultramar's fringes, a giant who converts jaded skeptics into fervent believers in the course of a single sermon. When these reach Guilliman, he discounts them as exaggeration.

 **611.M30** : Macragge, Roboute Guilliman

 **615.M30** : Colchis, Lorgar Aurelian. Guilliman and the Emperor connect the rumors to the possibility of a missing primarch, and find Colchis in short order once they do.

 **642.M30** : Olympia, Perturabo

 **670.M30** : Deliverance/Kiavahr, Corvus Corax

 **679.M30** : Nuceria, The Fettered

 **733.M30** : Night Haunter(/Konrad Curze), Nostramo

 **745.M30** : Troubling signs of renewed command structure is observed among Rangdan remnants in several pieces of the former Rangdan Sphere. A third and final Rangdan Xenocide, more thorough and total than the previous two, begins.

 **754.M30** : A classified action involving the Space Wolves, believed to be the destruction of the Legio II.

ca. **765.M30** : Primarch XI, in the Ghoul Stars

 **772.M30** : A classified action involving the Space Wolves, believed to be the destruction of the Legio XI.

 **773.M30** : Destruction of the 'perfect city' of Monarchia. Lorgar of the Word Bearers goes into seclusion for forty weeks.

 **773.M30** : The Space Wolves and Legio XX join the Third Rangdan Xenocide, under Lion El'Johnson's overall command.

 **778.M30** : The Third Rangdan Xenocide is declared a success, though at great cost; of the five legions involved, three lose more than a third of their number in the bloody fighting, and the other two - the Sixth and Twentieth - each take at least a tenth of their complement in losses.

 **781.M30** : Vulkan and the Salamanders declare independence from the Imperium for moral reasons.

 **799.M30** : Haunter's Crisis. Correspondence with Vulkan incites Night Haunter to return to Nostramo and is horrified by what he sees. He sends his legion to reimpose order and personally destroys the ruling palace in a frenzied rage, but then flees the system. Some time in the next year, he seeks out Corvus Corax for advice.

 **840.M30** : Alpharius Omegon's discovery is acknowledged. Konrad Curze is his mentor.

 **890.M30** : Lorgar and the Gal Vorbak enter the Eye of Terror and become Daemonhosts.

 **913.M30** : Triumph of Ullanor. Horus made Warmaster.

 **914.M30** : Roboute Guilliman declares a renewed Realm of Ultramar overtly opposed to the Imperium.

 **915.M30** : Council of Nikea, Malcador presiding. Sanction of Malcador. Chaplain Edict.

 **916.M30** : Mortarion and the Death Guard defy the Sanction of Malcador and continue to massacre psykers wherever they find them.

 **945.M30** : Lorgar tempts Vulkan into visiting the 'lost Eldar homeworlds' and induces his fall to Tzeentch.

 **964.M30** : Mortarion meets Vulkan for a parley to discuss an alliance, but recoils from the witch-taint instantly and departs violently. Death Guard break with the Imperium entirely.

 **001.M31** : Murder of Horus. The Khan's Hunt.

 **002.M31** : Istvaan Accord declared. Retaliation Fleet assembled. Drop Site Massacre occurs. The Heresy War begins.


End file.
